Winter wonderland hike to Maulin Mountain

After much Christmas indulgences and more of an effort needed to close my jeans, the mountains were calling for a much needed energising hike and a good dose of fresh air.

We decided on trying a new hike and as we were kid free for the day, we thought why not enjoy a longer hike…we were up for a challenge! We decided on Maulin mountain (570metre) and it’s route we often passed on the way to Djouce Mountain. You can see its lower peak from the top of Djouce in the distance. It’s located on the north-eastern section of the Wicklow mountains and it’s off the main Wicklow Way. Our starting point was Crone Wood car-park, which was full when we arrived! It seemed everyone wanted to get outdoors!

We did a fabulous loop walk around 10k, zig-zagging all the way to the top of Maulin. Behind us we could see the Sugar Loaf and the blue, blue Irish sea alongside us on the right hand side. We had views right out to Dublin Bay with the Towers in the distant view. It was glorious to see such an open continuous expanse of the sea, the higher we climbed the more stunning the view became. Tall Sitka Spruce trees lined the walk until the last 200m ascent.

The place was like a winter wonderland with snow dusted trees and the hills all covered white in the distance. The birds seems to be hidding! We kept moving at a quick pace to keep warm…Towards the last 30minutes of hike you turn left and climb over a gate where we were in the shade and on the edge of Maulin. We made our way along a narrow path, a bit icy in parts until we turn left at a wall  to climb last 100 metres or so of the mountain.

We walked alongside the the dusted snow shrub, with icicles forming and trapped air bubbles in little ice-pools on the top of Maulin. It was a noticeable few degrees cooler on the top of the Mountain. Here we soaked up the stunning views of the Irish sea and snow covered Djouce revealed itself in the distance, you could also see the Northern part of the Wicklow hills towards Dublin.  We met a hungry little dog looking in our bag for food! There was a constant stream of people climbing up from the other side, all ages, like ants climbing a hill in the distance with a jubilant atmosphere on the top of having made it!

After a quick cuppa to heat up and lunch, we moved on to keep warm and descended back down the towards the Valley before Djouce… We looped back left into the woods and took in the views again of the Powerscout waterfall. It was shimmering white and looked magical. It was a welcome to be back in the more sheltered woods. We descended back down towards an emptier Crone car-park feeling tired but good tired and refreshed.

Thanks for reading & hope you get to enjoy the wonderful outdoors over the holidays.

Yasmina

To Note/Additional resources: This hike was marked with a red marker, signalling; ‘Strenuous’ though I did think it was more moderate. At a quick pace, the total walk was c.3 hours, around 10k. A great resource I use for planning walks is the Ordance Survey ‘Wicklow map’. There are newer editions now here to one we bought moons ago, which needs a bit of mending! Wicklow Tourism website has some great resource collection of walks, view here.